Mary Catelli's Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

Early in the story, the heroine thinks she should practice a spell for later use, in case she needs to prevent prying.

Later, I am desperately wondering how to set up a conversation she wants no one to listen to except the select group -- until I remember that earlier bit.

Also, it could be used for several points in between.

Sometimes inspiration is a matter of connecting the dots

At least the five villains entered.

Not the ones who refuse to villainize.  This is the other isekai tale, where  I thought there were five points where the villain acted.  

There are four subvillains, and the important thing was nailing down what they looked like.  

Not that the connecting parts are so clear.

Yes, there are always questions about "what goes here?" while writing, but this time, after I put a question in a crucial moment, the muse starts to babble about questions.

At the turning points, the heroine's victories will turn on her having correctly framed the questions. Victory turns on that.

Not, of course, that I have three questions (and answers) for the three crucial points. I may have to generate one. sigh

Oh you plot bunnies!

Two very different stories about a character who finds herself in another world.  The means by which they are moved differ, the situations they find themselves in differ, their powersets differ, and the reasons they have powers differ.  Their enemies differ, and so does the conflict.

This probably means they should have different reactions to arrival, perhaps all the more in that they do not glide over it as a machine that the readers will simply accept as not relevant to the plot.  (It is relevant in both cases, though -- the reasons differ.)

Both are going to have  metaphysical questions, though.  No matter how different I make them.

(And I don't even know if either one is a full story yet.)

Was reading an article talking about how to build your magical system.  It said you could start once you had the main structural points of your plot.

My eyes rolled so hard I had to retrieve them from under the desk. 

Yes, in, say, "The Witch Child and the Scarlet Fleet" I designed the magic system to fit the story.  But in "Winter's Curse" I worked backwards from the idea of the curse to design a story to reveal it. 

A couple in this story will marry.

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Abduction is useful when starting out with a story.

By which I do not mean stealing a story idea from something (even something copyrighted) and then running off with it slung over your shoulders, though abduction is good for that, but logical abduction, where you start with things and try to fit them together.

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